The Turn-Up

🎶🎶I’m happy today, soooo happy! In Jeeeesus’ Name, I am happy because He has taken away… my sins away….. I am happy, so happy today!🎶🎶

How many of us remember that nursery rhyme? 🙂 Well, the mantra of that song should should be our lifestyle. Happiness is the name of the game and keep in mind that God tells us to rejoice always! (1 Thessalonians 5:16)

The Bible is the most interesting Book to read and I’ll keep reiterating that fact. Studying the Bible’s sixty-six books can feel like a potluck and our reading habits might be picky too. The Psalms and Proverbs might be sweet and easy to read and the books of Numbers and Leviticus might have the attraction of a week-old dry bread but… as unsavory as they might seem, don’t be so quick to pass on challenging sections of the Bible.

Jesus said that men and women live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, not just some of them. All of Scripture is meant for the Christian’s nourishment (Romans 15:4). All of God’s Word is sweet when you can see Him in it through the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

I was reading a devotional Bible study plan called ‘Being A Woman Of The Word’ and I was enticed to take a sneak peak into the Old Testament for a little while….

I watched an animated “trailer” of Esther on the YouVersion App and I got enticed to read the story once again. In essence, I hadn’t read the story of Esther in depth but I knew the general gist of things. When I got down to reading the book, I finished the first four chapters in one go! The story keeps getting juicy with each chapter and the plot twist is something else!

The book of Esther is about a Jewish community living in Susa, the then capital city of Persia. The narrative has four main characters; King Ahasuerus [The King of the Persian Empire], Haman [the evil guy in the story] and two Jews – Mordecai and Esther [the ones who eventually save the Israelites].

Right off the bat, we get to see the pompous lifestyle that the Persians lived, take a look at this:

“The celebration lasted 180 days—a tremendous display of the opulent wealth of his empire and the pomp and splendor of his majesty. When it was all over, the king gave a banquet for all the people, from the greatest to the least, who were in the fortress of Susa. It lasted for seven days and was held in the courtyard of the palace garden.”
‭‭Esther‬ ‭1:4-5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

A party for 180 days! Yooooh!! That’s almost half a year of non-stop banquets and merry making!

When people say that the “party don’t stop”, they must have gotten it from the Persians! I’m reminded of an (in)famous viral video of a Kenyan drunken driver who said, “stop wasting a good time because that is where you go wrong…” 😅

Speaking of celebrations, I mentioned to you in my previous post that June is my birthday month and you know what? The Lord surely surprised me a great deal this past weekend! I had not one but two birthday celebration parties even before my actual birthday date.  Eyyy! 🙌🏽Pretty neat huh? 😉 I was exhilarated!

The month of June is still open so you are more than welcome [read highly encouraged] to celebrate me, with me. 😉 In ancient Persian style, my weekend-long festivities would be considered a mere day 2 of 180 so… party till December anyone? 🙂

I would like to acknowledge a special group of sweet, funny, bubbly and vibrant young people that celebrated me all the way from Nigeria!! Yes, you read right. Nigeria! I was absolutely blessed by their outpouring of love. I was overwhelmed!

Prior to that, I had an interview on Al-Jazeera on June 6th (I will tell you all about this a little later) and guess who raised my banner high on the Twitter streets? You guessed right… it was the same sweet Nigerians! Jare! Wetin dey happen na?

I was not the only one making merry this June…[drum roll]…. Dumi Mkokstad got married. Yes ladies, Dumi is now officially taken. Let’s have a moment of silence.

My bestie, Fifi, asked me how I processed the news of Dumi’s nuptials given that I wore my heart on my sleeve in my Ntate ke Mang song review😅but hey… in an interesting twist of events, a Nigerian ‘broda’ proposed to me on Twitter that very same week; see how God works? 😅

The phrase, “party like its your birthday” should be changed to “party like you’re in ancient Persia” because a nation-wide, all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink banquet lasting a whooping one hundred and eighty days, has not been held in such a manner to date.

We are only eleven days into the month of June and we’ve had Dumi’s wedding, my Twitter engagement, two birthday parties and we’re still counting. If we extrapolate this merry-making trend, is there a probability that the Persian party history could be re-writing itself this year? 🤔

I am not going to tell you the rest of the story of Esther because…. I want you to read it for yourself! 😛 I was only whetting your interest. 😉 I do however, have two fun facts that I would like to share with you about the Book:

1. God is not mentioned AT ALL in the whole narrative
2. The writer of this book is anonymous

I would love for you to read the Bible more often, it has definitely has some hilarious tales. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you how funny the Bible is! 😉 In case you’re wondering how parties and reading the Bible are co-related; I am simply showing you that God is very much invested in us having a good time. 🙂 I am not talking about wild, drunken parties filled with lewdness and debauchery; no. I am talking about sane, fun-filled laughter with good company having good conversations over some good food.

I started off today’s message by encouraging us to maintain a default status of happiness! 🙂

“Everything seems to go wrong when you feel weak and depressed. But when you choose to be cheerful, every day will bring you more and more joy and fullness.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭15:15‬ ‭TPT

Joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). You can see from the scripture above that joy is a choice; it is you to choose joy.

Our God loves laughing – just like I do! 😉 I am, after all, made in His image and likeness. 🙂 I release the impartation of laughter as you read this! Laugh out loud! Ha! Haha! Hahahaha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Laugh again…and again….

Did you know that laughter is one of the ways we overcome the enemy?

“From his throne in heaven the Lord laughs and mocks their feeble plans.”

Psalm 2:4 GNT

I was watching this video that really cracked me up and I got to see God’s sense of humuor through His creation. Watch from minute 0:50 to 3:50 then you’ll tell me whether or not you think God is funny!

Did you have a good time reading today’s article? Did you laugh as much as I did? [I was laughing as I was typing this blog post]. I am happy! I am overjoyed! I’m overflowing gratitude! I thank the Lord for each and everything and for each and everyone of you… You are a blessing to me!

If you’re not born again and would love to join us on the fun side of life, please repeat the prayer below out loud:

Lord Jesus, I heed to your call in my life. I denounce the devil and my evil ways and I choose You to be Lord and Savior in my life. I believe in my heart that You died on the cross to set me free. I believe that You rose again from the dead so that I may have eternal life. I receive the life of Christ in me today. I am saved. I have been set free. I am born again. Jesus is Lord over my life.  Hallelujah!  I am now a child of God. In Jesus’ Name I confess.

Amen.

Have you just concluded that prayer? Excellent! Now, that’s a reason for you to laugh!

   XO,

That Lady.